Trump says he will fire intelligence watchdog at center of Ukraine allegations that led to impeachment

[homersapien 11,447]

Can't let a pandemic crisis interrupt the ongoing corruption and vindictiveness.

 

 

Ellen Nakashima, 

Josh Dawsey and 

Shane Harris 

April 3, 2020 at 10:49 p.m. EDT

President Trump notified Congress Friday evening that he intends in 30 days to fire the intelligence community inspector general, the official who alerted lawmakers to a whistleblower complaint last September that was at the center of allegations that led to the president’s impeachment.

The bombshell move to remove Michael Atkinson comes as the administration is struggling to cope with a coronavirus pandemic that has killed thousands of Americans.

The whistleblower complaint centered on Trump’s efforts last summer to pressure the Ukrainian government to undertake investigations of former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, moves that would undermine a likely rival to Trump in his reelection bid.

Trump informed lawmakers in a letter late Friday night that he was removing Atkinson. “It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as inspectors general,’’ he wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “That is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general.”

Trump has faulted Atkinson repeatedly for letting the complaint reach Congress and also as enabling what he has called a “hoax” of an impeachment, administration officials said.

He has weighed for months removing Atkinson, whom he picked for the job in late 2017, but has been periodically talked out of it.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the reason for or the timing of the firing.

Trump in recent days has renewed his agitation against the “deep state”—what he perceives as politically-motivated enemies in the ranks of career employees, one administration official said, after a Justice Department inspector general report on FBI errors in more than two dozen national security surveillance applications.

Atkinson, a respected and understated lawyer who served for more than 15 years in the Justice Department, was informed Friday night that Trump intended to fire him and was placed on administrative leave immediately, according to U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The statute requires that both intelligence committees be notified by the president 30 days before the date of the inspector general’s removal. But placing Atkinson on administrative leave effectively sidelines him immediately, the aide said.

Trump’s action drew immediate condemnation from senior Democratic lawmakers and intelligence community veterans.

“Whether it’s Lt. Col. Vindman, Captain Crozier, or Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson: President Trump fires people for telling the truth,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “Michael Atkinson is a man of integrity who has served our nation for almost two decades. Being fired for having the courage to speak truth to power makes him a patriot.”

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was a Ukraine specialist on the White House National Security Council who testified during the House impeachment about monitoring Trump’s July 25 telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It was that call that raised concerns Trump was pressing Zelensky for a political favor. Vindman was removed from his White House post days after Trump was acquitted by the Senate.

Capt. Brett Crozier was the commander of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt who was removed after the leaking of a blunt letter he wrote to his superiors about what he saw as insufficient measures to fight a coronavirus outbreak aboard the vessel.

“In the midst of a national emergency, it is unconscionable that the president is once again attempting to undermine the integrity of the intelligence community by firing yet another intelligence official simply for doing his job,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark R. Warner (D-Va.). “We should all be deeply disturbed by ongoing attempts to politicize the nation’s intelligence agencies.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) called the move “yet another blatant attempt by the president to gut the independence of the intelligence community and retaliate against those who dare to expose presidential wrongdoing.” Said Schiff: “At a time when our country is dealing with a national emergency and needs people in the intelligence community to speak truth to power, the president’s dead of night decision puts our country and national security at even greater risk.”

Mark Zaid, the attorney who previously represented the whistleblower, who alleged that Trump had solicited Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 presidential election, called Atkinson’s firing “nothing but a delayed retaliatory action taken against an independent IG for his proper handling of a whistleblower complaint.”

Trump’s decision to fire Atkinson follows the removal of other senior intelligence community officials, including the acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center, in what several current and former officials have called a “purge” of career, non-partisan leaders.

“This step should come as no surprise given the president’s well documented belief that personal loyalty and fealty — rather than professional qualifications and demonstrated integrity — are the principle requirements for service at senior levels in this administration,” said Nicholas Rasmussen, a former director of the counterterrorism center.

Atkinson was sworn in as the inspector general in May 2018. He kept a low profile but was thrust into the spotlight after alerting Congress to the existence of the whistleblower complaint. He found the complaint to be both “credible” and “urgent,” two criteria under the statute that trigger a requirement that Congress be notified within seven days.

That set off a tussle between the administration and the House Intelligence Committee, which was finally resolved when then-Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire released the complaint to Congress. The following day, the White House released a rough transcript of the call between Zelensky and Trump.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-says-he-will-fire-intelligence-watchdog-at-center-of-ukraine-allegations-that-led-to-impeachment/2020/04/03/d0b873d4-761c-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html

[jj3jordan 2,061]

Changed the rules to allow second hand information, hearsay, and allowed the employee who was not in his chain of command to file the complaint. Why didn't he use his own chain of command?  Legit firing.

[homersapien 11,447]

1 hour ago, jj3jordan said:

Changed the rules to allow second hand information, hearsay, and allowed the employee who was not in his chain of command to file the complaint. Why didn't he use his own chain of command?  Legit firing.

Total MAGA

(And there would have been a lot less "heresay" had Trump not blocked most of the principles to testify. Trump is a gangster boss and you don't care.) 

[AUFAN78 3,926]

President Trump moved to get rid of the Intelligence Community inspector general, Michael Atkinson. That's the guy who changed the rules to accommodate the so-called whistleblower, to file his whistle blowings about President Trump's phone call with the president of Ukraine, handing them over to Adam Schiff's House Intelligence Committee staff, planning it all out beforehand, in order to open the gates to impeachment.  Until Atkinson came along, a whistleblower needed to have firsthand knowledge of official wrongdoing to file, not water-cooler talk from fellow malcontents in the Deep State trying to come up with some way to Get Trump.  The fact that the likely whistleblower, CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella, was able to file such charges with nothing more than disliking Trump as his motive is precisely why the impeachment bid failed against the president and ended as such a farce. That wasn't all he did, either; he also stonewalled Congress when asked about his convenient little rules change.  Seems he had something to hide. In any other setting, where a coup-plotter changes the rules to make things go the way he likes to make them go, or a malcontent is constantly striking at the boss, it's a perfect reason for getting rid of the creep.  Trump was absolutely right to fire Atkinson for picking and choosing how to make a motivated, politically soiled malcontent appear credible by manipulating the rules to let him do it. 

[homersapien 11,447]

He was fired for doing his job.  Period.

[jj3jordan 2,061]

11 hours ago, homersapien said:

He was fired for doing his job.  Period.

He was fired for trying to take down the president. Period.

[homersapien 11,447]

14 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

He was fired for trying to take down the president. Period.

This is Trump’s vilest act of retribution yet

By Editorial Board 

April 6, 2020 at 6:24 p.m. EDT

WHEN MICHAEL ATKINSON, the intelligence community’s inspector general, received a whistleblower’s complaint on Aug. 12 about President Trump’s attempt to extort political favors from Ukraine, he judged that it was “credible” and of “urgent concern.” As sworn congressional testimony later conclusively confirmed, he was right. Federal law required that in those circumstances, the whistleblower report be delivered to Congress; in a Aug. 26 letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Mr. Atkinson said the legal standard had been met.

For that, Mr. Atkinson, a respected, nonpartisan public servant with a 17-year record, was fired late Friday night by Mr. Trump, who used the cover of night and the novel coronavirus pandemic to extend his purge of officials who cooperated with the exposure or investigation of his wrongdoing. It was the most blatant and shameful act of retribution yet by a president who has sought to shut down all independent checks on his behavior.

Unlike Joseph Maguire, the acting intelligence director whom Mr. Trump previously fired, or Gordon Sondland, the dismissed ambassador to the European Union, or Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the ousted National Security Council director for Ukraine, Mr. Atkinson’s job was not to implement Trump administration policies. Rather, like inspectors general across the government, his job, as he put it in a statement he released Sunday, was to act “as an independent and impartial” auditor. “It is hard not to think that the president’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations,” Mr. Atkinson wrote.

Mr. Trump, whose autocratic impulses have been swelled by the abject failure of Congress to check them, did not pretend otherwise. “He did a terrible job,” he told reporters Saturday. “He took a fake report and brought it to Congress with an emergency, Okay? Not a big Trump fan, I can tell you.” He further complained that Mr. Atkinson “never came in to see me” before forwarding the whistleblower complaint.

The disregard for truth and the rule of law laced through that rant is breathtaking. First, as a number of Republican senators subsequently acknowledged, the complaint that Mr. Atkinson forwarded was not fake but an accurate description of the pressure Mr. Trump placed on Ukraine’s president to investigate former vice president Joe Biden. Contrary to the president’s suggestion, Mr. Atkinson’s duty was not to consult him about the whistleblower complaint — much less to be a “Trump fan” — but to determine whether the allegation was credible and, if so, forward it to Congress while protecting the whistleblower.

Mr. Atkinson did that, scrupulously. His reward was to have his career upended by a president who regards the U.S. government as his personal satrapy. Once again, congressional Republicans are unwilling to check Mr. Trump’s abuse; apart from a meek request from Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) for “written reasons” for Mr. Atkinson’s removal, they have been silent.

In his statement, Mr. Atkinson himself appealed to government employees and contractors to speak up when they observe “unethical, wasteful, or illegal behavior. . . . Please do not allow recent events to silence your voices.” We trust there will be more whistleblowers, but thanks to this president’s wanton political purges and the failure of Congress to resist them, doing their duty will take more courage than should be required of any public servant.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-trumps-vilest-act-of-retribution-yet/2020/04/06/c685cb0a-781f-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html

 

 

 

 

[homersapien 11,447]

14 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

He was fired for trying to take down the president. Period.

Some people just deserve to be made slaves by an authoritarian government.

I submit you are such an example.

[jj3jordan 2,061]

34 minutes ago, homersapien said:

This is Trump’s vilest act of retribution yet

By Editorial Board 

April 6, 2020 at 6:24 p.m. EDT

WHEN MICHAEL ATKINSON, the intelligence community’s inspector general, received a whistleblower’s complaint on Aug. 12 about President Trump’s attempt to extort political favors from Ukraine, he judged that it was “credible” and of “urgent concern.” As sworn congressional testimony later conclusively confirmed, he was right. Federal law required that in those circumstances, the whistleblower report be delivered to Congress; in a Aug. 26 letter to the acting director of national intelligence, Mr. Atkinson said the legal standard had been met.

For that, Mr. Atkinson, a respected, nonpartisan public servant with a 17-year record, was fired late Friday night by Mr. Trump, who used the cover of night and the novel coronavirus pandemic to extend his purge of officials who cooperated with the exposure or investigation of his wrongdoing. It was the most blatant and shameful act of retribution yet by a president who has sought to shut down all independent checks on his behavior.

Unlike Joseph Maguire, the acting intelligence director whom Mr. Trump previously fired, or Gordon Sondland, the dismissed ambassador to the European Union, or Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the ousted National Security Council director for Ukraine, Mr. Atkinson’s job was not to implement Trump administration policies. Rather, like inspectors general across the government, his job, as he put it in a statement he released Sunday, was to act “as an independent and impartial” auditor. “It is hard not to think that the president’s loss of confidence in me derives from my having faithfully discharged my legal obligations,” Mr. Atkinson wrote.

Mr. Trump, whose autocratic impulses have been swelled by the abject failure of Congress to check them, did not pretend otherwise. “He did a terrible job,” he told reporters Saturday. “He took a fake report and brought it to Congress with an emergency, Okay? Not a big Trump fan, I can tell you.” He further complained that Mr. Atkinson “never came in to see me” before forwarding the whistleblower complaint.

The disregard for truth and the rule of law laced through that rant is breathtaking. First, as a number of Republican senators subsequently acknowledged, the complaint that Mr. Atkinson forwarded was not fake but an accurate description of the pressure Mr. Trump placed on Ukraine’s president to investigate former vice president Joe Biden. Contrary to the president’s suggestion, Mr. Atkinson’s duty was not to consult him about the whistleblower complaint — much less to be a “Trump fan” — but to determine whether the allegation was credible and, if so, forward it to Congress while protecting the whistleblower.

Mr. Atkinson did that, scrupulously. His reward was to have his career upended by a president who regards the U.S. government as his personal satrapy. Once again, congressional Republicans are unwilling to check Mr. Trump’s abuse; apart from a meek request from Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) for “written reasons” for Mr. Atkinson’s removal, they have been silent.

In his statement, Mr. Atkinson himself appealed to government employees and contractors to speak up when they observe “unethical, wasteful, or illegal behavior. . . . Please do not allow recent events to silence your voices.” We trust there will be more whistleblowers, but thanks to this president’s wanton political purges and the failure of Congress to resist them, doing their duty will take more courage than should be required of any public servant.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-trumps-vilest-act-of-retribution-yet/2020/04/06/c685cb0a-781f-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html

 

 

 

 

Excuse me?  Who cares what the WaPo editorial board has to say?  Talk about somebody willing to be made a slave...that's you Homer. Ref post below.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

7 hours ago, homersapien said:

Some people just deserve to be made slaves by an authoritarian government.

I submit you are such an example.

Homes, you are a slave to WAPO. Can't get much worse. 

[IronMan70 3,277]

Good, he fired that IG hear say coup plotter. POTUS should have cleaned out that politicized nest of deep state vipers a long time ago. 6 more will be gone soon.

[homersapien 11,447]

20 hours ago, IronMan70 said:

Good, he fired that IG hear say coup plotter. POTUS should have cleaned out that politicized nest of deep state vipers a long time ago. 6 more will be gone soon.

Yeah, we don't need any oversight on big government and their multi-trillion dollar spending programs. Just let Trump be Trump.

Fool

[homersapien 11,447]

On 4/7/2020 at 7:09 PM, AUFAN78 said:

Homes, you are a slave to WAPO. Can't get much worse. 

They are the newspaper of record in the nation's capital city - you know where our government operates?

I realize that means nothing to fools like you who don't understand the role of a free press in our system, but there you go.

[IronMan70 3,277]

5 hours ago, homersapien said:

Yeah, we don't need any oversight on big government and their multi-trillion dollar spending programs. Just let Trump be Trump.

Fool

That's the choices, lol ? I don't think so. He was part of a coup and he needs to be in jail. A fool wouldn't understand that and try to obfuscate the point.

 

.

[homersapien 11,447]

1 minute ago, IronMan70 said:

That's the choices, lol ? I don't think so. He was part of a coup and he needs to be in jail. A fool wouldn't understand that and try to obfuscate the point.

 

.

"coup"   

You are either a Russian Troll or just spoofing us.

[IronMan70 3,277]

54 minutes ago, homersapien said:

"coup"   

You are either a Russian Troll or just spoofing us.

No, no, no, POTUS is a Russian spy, I'm a Swedish spy. You are getting your propaganda mixed up. Don't forget Orange Man Bad too. Records already made public on the first.

[AUFAN78 3,926]

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/in-defense-of-presidential-purges/

[AUFAN78 3,926]

On 4/10/2020 at 11:37 AM, homersapien said:

They are the newspaper of record in the nation's capital city - you know where our government operates?

I realize that means nothing to fools like you who don't understand the role of a free press in our system, but there you go.

I realize they are a corrupt organization and parroting their lies makes you a liar in my eyes. An old fart like you should know better.